His wife, Barbara Rose, was at his side when he died in his Northwest Portland home.

McElligott was elected in 1982 and retired in 2006, although he continued to hear cases on a volunteer basis until he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2011. The cancer, his sister Jean Fryer said Saturday, was a result of being exposed to Agent Orange during his service in the Vietnam War.

McElligott was born Feb. 4, 1946, in Portland and drafted after graduating from Portland State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science. After the war, he went to law school at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. He returned to Portland after graduating and started practicing mostly criminal law in 1974, said Chuck Fryer, Jean’s husband and a lawyer who practiced with McElligott for two years before McElligott was elected to the circuit court.

Chuck Fryer said lawyers were fond of McElligott because he often knew both sides of a case better than they did, and he would cut through the nonsense. By the time he retired after more than 20 years as a judge, he had the respect of not only prosecuting and defense lawyers, but all of the judges he worked with.

“He was bright, had a good sense of humor and absolute control over the courtroom,” Chuck Fryer said. “And he was scrupulously fair.”

McElligott’s most well-known case involved Cesar Barone, who was convicted in the murders of four Portland area women. A jury sent Barone to death row in a 1995 trial.

A memorial service for McElligott will be at 3 p.m. Jan. 11 at the Charles D. Cameron Public Services Building in Hillsboro, at 155 N. First Ave.